Dear friends, farewell

including
Dear friends, farewell, I go to dwell
Dear friends, farewell, I now must go
Dear friends, farewell, I do you tell

In the 1790s, three hymns, all anonymous and covering the same general theme of parting, emerged in American songbooks and achieved varying degrees of dispersion and retention. Another similar hymn, “Farewell, dear friends, I must be gone,” also achieved some success, but its roots are deeper and more complex, tracing back to England, and will be treated on a separate page. The three hymns are presented below in order of emergence.

I. Dear friends, farewell, I go to dwell

The first of these hymns appeared in The Christians Duty, Exhibited in a Series of Hymns (Germantown, PA: Peter Leibert, 1791 | Fig. 1), compiled by “The Fraternity of Baptists.” Peter Leibert (1727–1812) and his family were members of the Church of the Brethren (Mennonite) in Philadelphia. The family home at 6950 Germantown Ave., built ca. 1800–1808, still stands, as does their church meetinghouse at 6133 Germantown Ave.

The original hymn spanned six stanzas of four lines, headed “A Dying Saint’s Farewell,” unattributed, and printed without music. In this case, the “farewell” is one of impending death, but it looks forward to heavenly realms where believers will be reunited in worship.

This hymn was repeated in editions of The Christian’s Duty through 1825. Mennonites in Ohio published it in multiple editions of A Choice Selection of Hymns from Various Authors. It was also printed among Baptists in Starke Dupuy’s Hymns and Spiritual Songs, in editions from 1818 to 1841 (eds. 3–22; the two editions prior to 1818 were not available for examination).

II. Dear friends, farewell, I now must go

This second version is derivative of the first, substituting a new first stanza but retaining the rest with some alterations. It first appeared in A Short Collection of Hymns (1795 | Fig. 2). The heading, “Gospel Minister’s Farewell,” aptly describes how the hymn has been recast. Rather than the separation of a dying saint, the text is from the perspective of a preacher who must leave. The perspective shifts in the fourth stanza to describe a more complete heavenly reunion.

Only one other surviving printing of this version is known, in A Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1801), the second collection compiled by Richard Allen, who started his career as an itinerant Methodist preacher and would have been able to identify with the sentiment. This and ten other hymns from the 1795 collection were adopted into Allen’s hymnal.

III. Dear friends, farewell, I do you tell

1. The Text

This third hymn has been the most widely printed and also the only one to have been set to music. Its first known appearance was in A Collection of Sacred Ballads (1790 | Fig. 3), edited by Andrew and Richard Broaddus. In this printing, the hymn appeared in ten stanzas of four lines, unattributed, without music. Little is known of Richard, but Andrew Broaddus (1770–1848) was a prominent Baptist preacher and hymnal compiler. At age 20, he had just converted from Episcopal to Baptist the previous year, newly baptized 28 May 1789, and he was ordained the following year, 16 October 1791, both occurring in Upper King and Queen Baptist Church, Newton, Virginia.

The hymn appeared next in Joshua Smith’s Divine Hymns or Spiritual Songs, Fifth Exeter Edition (Exeter, NH: Henry Ranlet, 1793 | Fig. 4). It might have appeared in any or all of the previous four editions, but none apparently survive and could not be consulted. In Smith’s collections, as in most early printings, the hymn began “Brethren, farewell, I do you tell.”

Joshua Smith (1760–1795) was a Baptist minister in New Hampshire. His version of the text spanned nine stanzas of four lines and was headed “The Brethren’s Farewell.” Like “Dear friends, farewell, I now must go,” the hymn begins with an earthly parting then moves toward the possibility of a heavenly reunion. Although the themes are the same, neither text shares lines from the other, except for the second and fourth lines of the last stanza.

The same year as Smith’s fifth edition, the hymn had appeared in Hymns and Spiritual Songs, selected from Several Approved Authors, Recommended by the Baptist General Committee of Virginia (Richmond, VA: John Dixon, 1793). Its earliest appearance in three Baptist collections would therefore seem to suggest a Baptist author.

This hymn was then printed in A Collection of Spiritual Songs and Hymns (1801 | Fig. 5), compiled by Methodist preacher Richard Allen. Allen’s version was taken into the second edition of Hymns and Spiritual Songs for the Use of Christians (Baltimore: Samuel Sower, 1802) and its successors. It was included in every hymnal produced by Allen’s denomination through the African Methodist Episcopal Hymn and Tune Book (1898); starting in 1818, the first line was altered to read “Dear friends, farewell, I do you tell.” Allen probably borrowed his version from the Broaddus collection (1790), as he apparently did with some of his other hymns (see “Behold the awful trumpet sounds”), but he changed the odd line “I long to go, then farewell woe” to say “I long to go, then fare ye well.”

2. MINISTER’S FAREWELL

The hymn was first set to music in Wyeth’s Repository of Sacred Music, Part Second (1813 | Fig. 6). In Wyeth’s collection, the first line was altered to read “Dear friends, farewell, I do you tell”—the earliest known example of this alteration—and the text was structured as five double stanzas. Aside from the first two words, Wyeth used Broaddus’s version of the text.

The tune MINISTER’S FAREWELL first appeared in this collection, uncredited, alongside the first printing of the famous tune HALLELUJAH, better known elsewhere as NETTLETON. The tune achieved wider distribution through its inclusion in The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion (Spartanburg, SC: William Walker, 1835 | Fig. 7). In this case, Walker had copied the melody and bass lines shape-for-shape from Wyeth and added two additional voice parts.

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
27 January 2021
rev. 23 February 2021

Related Resources:

David W. Music, “Joshua Smith’s Divine Hymns or Spiritual Songs,” American Baptist Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 1 (Spring 2006), pp. 63–81.

“Dear friends, farewell, I go to dwell,” Hymnary.org: https://hymnary.org/text/dear_friends_farewell_i_go_to_dwell

“Dear friends, farewell, I now must go,” Hymnary.org: https://hymnary.org/text/dear_friends_farewell_i_now_must_go

“Dear friends, farewell, I do you tell,” Hymnary.org: https://hymnary.org/text/dear_friends_farewell_i_do_you_tell